


Fools Rush In

by emmykay



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bisexual Lardo, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, bisexual Shitty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmykay/pseuds/emmykay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julie broke up with her. </p><p>Lardo didn’t know what she was supposed to do, except at Julie’s parting shot as she left the coffee shop.  "You want comfort, Larissa?  Find some of those shitty friends of yours.  The hockey ones.“</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fools Rush In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stockinettestitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stockinettestitch/gifts).



> This is for stockinettestitch, who is amenable to Lardo/Shitty and [ this song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ThQkrXHdh4) (Can't Help Falling In Love by twenty one pilots). This is what happened.

Julie broke up with her. 

It hurt - it was blindingly bad. Lardo should have suspected something was up, but she wasn't thinking about it. She wasn't thinking what was going to happen after the term ended. It should have, but she somehow didn't see it.

In clear, unmistakable language, Julie announced that she was going to graduate, go back to Korea, marry a boy, and make a million dollars. Pretty much in that order. She was not going to wait for Lardo, or write, or even pretend she was going to. Julie was very practical. The economics (concentration in econometrics) degree should have told Lardo everything she needed to know about that.

No matter what fond, foolish dreams Lardo had held in her heart, for however long. It didn’t matter how much time they had spent together, talking, watching tv, sleeping, cooking, arguing, kissing. Nor did it matter how much time Lardo had dreamed of her; over breaks and in Kenya and even while riding the bus on hockey trips. It didn’t even matter how sweet Julie had said she was, over and over. 

She was sweet. Lardo guessed that she wasn’t sweet enough.

Lardo didn’t know what she was supposed to do, except at Julie’s parting shot as she left the coffee shop. (Julie probably purposefully picked a place with few memories, and hoped Lardo didn’t make too big a scene. She was right, as usual.) "You want comfort, Larissa? Find some of those shitty friends of yours. The hockey ones.“

Maybe it wasn’t Julie’s intent, but that’s exactly where Lardo ended up, sitting on the porch, sobbing. It was the best of terrible times to be sitting on there. It was super late, it was super dark, the couch smelled terrible. But it was better than being inside, where the thin walls of the Haus would reveal her current wrecked state.

Honestly, there probably wasn't a better metaphor for the end of a relationship than crying over your new ex while sitting on this couch that should have been condemned a million years ago.

A light flicked on from the inside, pouring a beam of fluorescing yellow over the porch.

Shit. She didn’t want to see anybody right now.

"Lards?”

Oh, god. She’d know that funny tenor with that East Coast prep school drawl anywhere. She choked down the thickness in her throat.

“Hey, Shitty.” Her voice came out thready, congested. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah. It's late. You should go back to bed.”

Shitty strolled out, wearing nothing but boxers. He came over to peer into her face, his heavy eyebrows pulling together. "You don’t look okay. You look like you're super allergic to the something that got spilled on the couch recently. Or, maybe, you're crying your eyes out.“

In the light of that sympathy, she cracked. "It’s - it’s - Julie. We broke up." She corrected herself. "She broke up with me.”

“Oh, damn.” 

“There’s a guy waiting for her, back home.”

Shitty took a seat next to her, heavily. "That sucks, man.“

"And the worst part - the worst part - I should have seen it coming.”

“Nah,” Shitty said. "Thinking like that doesn’t help.“

"If I could have done something.”

“Don’t. It just happens. You want me to get you something? Water? Beer? Bitty went shopping today - we might even have something that’s not beer or water in the fridge.”

Lardo looked him in the eye. "Shitty. You’re so nice. Why aren’t I with you?“

"Oh no.” He looked alarmed as he backed up on the couch cushion. "This is not a good time for you. Maybe another night.“

"But you’re graduating!” She grasped for straws. “Don’t you like me? You hit on me a lot that first season.”

“I remember - and I do, but - “

“And we have a good time together, don’t we?”

“Yah, but -

“And I make you laugh, and you tell me stories and it’ll just be a one-nighter. No commitment. You’re not big on commitment, right?“

"Bad for the team.”

“But you and Jack have - ”

“Ya,” was said reluctantly.

“More than once!”

“He’s got good hands,” Shitty admitted. 

“I do too!” Lardo said. “Is it because I can’t skate? You always took that personally - “

“That’s not it, I’m sorry I couldn’t teach you how to skate better. It’s - that’s - ” Shitty sighed. "That’s not it. I’m sure you got good hands. It’s - Jack and me - it’s an understanding, we have some rules. It was nice and friendly. Convenient. Nothing heavy. But you - “

"Am I not good enough, Shitty? Am I not sweet enough - not pretty enough - not smart enough - " Lardo asked. "What is it about me that made Julie not want me?" She ended on a whine of pain.

"C'mon, Lardo. It's not that." Shitty said, patiently. "No way is it that. You know better. Don't think that."

"Why not? You've banged lots of people you've liked less than you like me."

Shitty sighed. "You."

Lardo frowned, preparing for the worst. That voice was not a good voice, not the kind of voice you want to hear when you just propositioned one of your best friends. It was the let 'em down gently and hope they don't hate you in the morning voice. It was a pity voice.

"I'm not good enough for a pity bang?" 

"Aw, no, Lards. You're amazing. You're perfect. It's something else about the situation. You don't need _me_. Not now. Not to do that. You know?"

She sniffled. "No."

"You - ” Shitty shifted, on the seat, uncomfortable. "Look.“ He put a hand on the back of his neck under his sleep-mussed flow. "You really asking?" 

"Shits, I'm really asking."

He sighed, and looked at her. And she saw. She really saw. There was an exasperation in him, and a softness, which she already knew. But then there was something new. A kind of, of, she couldn't quite think of it like this, because if she did, it would change everything. But. It looked like yearning. "You.” 

She waited. She did want to know more about that look. Was it what she thought?

Finally, he said, “You know how Jack is with Bitty?”

She nodded.

“You think if Bitty had just broken up with his boyfriend and came up to Jack and wanted to spend the night - you think Jack would want to say no to making him feel better about himself?”

She blinked. "I don’t know - I - “

"How do you think it would end with them if it was like that? Do you think Jack would want to ruin whatever chance he had for anything meaningful, as a substitute, for a one night pity fuck? Do you think Bitty even knows the rules?”

“You’re Jack, here?” If things were actually that way, she had been very, very blind. 

Shitty nodded.

“And I’m Bitty?”

“Ya.” He looked uncomfortable. Softly, he said, “I don’t want us to end like that.”

Lardo sat back. She wanted to cry. Not for Julie anymore. But for someone else, something else. Instead, she hiccuped. "Shits.“ She leaned to the side, up against his bare shoulder. "I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

“This is a terrible way to find out.” 

His heart-felt “Ya think?” warmed her heart. 

"Jack and Bitty are ridiculous. And stupid."

Shitty coughed a pained laugh. "I know." He launched into a theory about relationship dynamics and the possible ways they could effect the team vis-à-vis Jack and Bitty. Then he wandered into a Hegelian dialectic about western paradigms of sexuality and relations and sports and distance, which made her smile.

“Thanks,” she said, marveling. "That's some bullshit."

“It’s what I do." 

“You and me - it would have been amazing,” she said, testing him, unable to resist the temptation of seeing if the moment had been really true.

“I know,” he replied, sounding genuinely sorry. “Because you are.”

She looked up into his familiar, dear face. A little tease pulled her lips upward. "Maybe another time. Raincheck?”

“Ya. Sure.” He smiled down at her and gently, so gently she would later think she imagined it, brushed her forehead with his mustache.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a whole hc where they meet up as they get older. She meets his neighbors (one of whom is John Kerry), she works for a graphics firm, and later hand-makes custom furniture. He goes into law and later heads up the pro bono section for a big international firm. They eventually get married, the wedding is in Hawaii. One of them learns the ukelele.


End file.
